Caveat Emptor

Thursday, 16 March 2017

I watched the live feed of last night's debate between Jonathan Portes and Michael Gove about trust in experts. To be honest it was pretty tame stuff and a great example of why these things don't really work. Both participants were impeccably polite (which is a good thing) and neither really sought to draw blood.

I sympathized with Portes because Gove simply refused to be drawn and used the classic tactic of essentially denying that what he originally said was actually what he meant. He then went on to cloak himself in a position that no reasonable person could object to and nobody was opposing i.e that you shouldn't accept an argument because of who has proposed it. It would clearly backfire to call him on this. When an opponent is putting on a conciliatory face it looks bad to go in for the kill. That's basically how bullshitters get away with it.

It looked to me as though Portes was just thinking, yeah whatever, beam me up Scotty. If an academic or other expert uses these tactics you would just conclude they are not serious and you no longer need to pay them any attention. Their credibility would be shot. But for a politician this is a much more effective get out of jail card. Nobody expects them to be anything other than evasive and thus a successful show of evasion doesn't damage them it actually makes them look as though they are masters of the political dark arts. The bottom line is that the public expects politicians to play a political game and reward them when they play it successfully. That doesn't mean they necessarily like it, just that they understand how the game works and what it takes to win it.

If you are in any way constrained by truth, facts, evidence and consistency, then you are going to have a tough time going head to head against a first rank politician. Debate? What Debate?